Resilience
by MaraYeelzor
Summary: "Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it's less good than the one you had before." Elizabeth Edwards A slightly more realistic look of what it's like to fall into another world (I hope!).
1. Prologue

You know those stories where the squeeing fan girl wakes up in Middle- Earth and can speak perfect Elvish? Then Legolas falls madly in love with her? Yeah, this isn't one of those stories.

When I woke up in Middle-Earth I had no idea where I was or even who I was. Westron is nothing like English and learning Elvish is hard.

Not to mention that my first conscious experience was with a group of orcs. And let me tell you the orcs in Tolkein's stories were saints compared to the real thing.

Long story short: I was royally screwed.


	2. Chapter 1

Apparently I'm continuing this! :)

Disclaimer: I own nothing in Middle-Earth. It's Tolkien's sandbox, not mine. I mean, I wish, right?

Constructive feedback is always welcome. I'm not 100% sure what I'm doing with this and it's completely unbeta'd, so...you know...

Onward and upward!

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><p>Instead of a quick jolt into consciousness, I felt myself slowly grasping for it, propelled by some force I could not pinpoint. Something was wrong. It was like trying to swim through a vat of molasses or maple syrup. Maple syrup? Why did I think of that?<p>

Maybe I could figure out what was happening after I opened my eyes. It was a struggle, but eventually light poured in, more and more light, and soon my eyes were fully open. Bright orange flame filled my field of vision and I blinked rapidly, pushing violently backward as I did, trying to clear the blue dots that now danced in front of me even when my eyes were fully closed.

Someone behind me shouted and I was kicked, rolling back toward the flames. I burnt my hand trying to stop before fully rolling onto the fire. Laughter erupted as I screamed in pain.

When the pain had died down enough for me to redirect my focus, I distracted myself by trying to discern shapes around the bright flames. My vision was still swimming from the sudden switch of darkness to light, but slowly the shapes around the fire began to take form. The hideously deformed men began taunting me in a guttural, horrible language of which I had never heard the like. I closed my eyes and began hoping beyond hope that I would be able to discern a word or two, that my lack of understanding was no more than an after effect of a concussion. But the words did not clear up and only became more and more terrible.

Opening my eyes, I blinked a couple of times to clear my vision and immediately wished I had not. Yes, my sight had cleared up and adjusted to the darkness, but what I saw scared the life out of me. I was not surrounded by men, I was surrounded by monsters. If you took movie monsters and zombies, put them through a blender, and assembled the remains, you would have a rough approximation of what I saw. So, of course I screamed.

And immediately hated myself for the reaction. All the scream served to do was delight my captors. Screwing my jaw shut, I glared at the monstrosity taunting me. Probably not remotely intimidating, but I had no idea where I was or what I was doing or who they were, so it was my only plan.

As I began to attempt to logically work through what the hell was going on, a new thought invaded my mind. I had no memory of how I got there. Panic set in as I realized I had no memory before waking up to this hell. I did not know who I was. I knew that the thoughts in my head were in English. I knew this place was unfamiliar and that it was not home. Everything felt wrong, but the knowledge of why had escaped me.

The monster opened his mouth to speak, but was cut short by an arrow through his head. Have you ever seen one of those fake arrow headbands? It kind of looked like that, but bloodier and with a disgusting _squish_ sound as it penetrated the monster's skull. Had I not been too shit-my-pants terrified to do so, I probably would have thrown up. As it was, though, the terror and shock combined froze me in place as all around me the monsters dropped to precise arrow shots.

A man appeared in my field of vision, a tall and beautiful man with eyes like crystal. He spoke to me, but again I found myself lacking any comprehension. A part of me wishes I could say something like it was because he was hot as hell, but the reality was I literally had no idea what he said.

So, I found myself asking him the stupidest question possible, "do you speak English?"

He blinked at me.

"Okay, guess not."

Another blink, then he lifted me off the ground and carried me to a horse. After he helped me mount the horse and leaped on behind me, I guessed it was his horse. Others gathered around us and began conversing with my saviour. It was at that point I finally noticed just how pointy their ears were and how long their hair was. Then I caught one word amongst their chatter being repeated.

A string of words then a distinct _yrch._ I caught it again as one of my rescuers pointed to the creatures. And again.

Steeling myself for mockery, I pointed down at the bodies and said, "yrch?"

Everyone went silent and it felt like an eternity before my saviour said, "ma. Yrch." There was a brief pause, then he continued slowly, "im Rumil." He repeated himself, pointing to his chest.

"Rumil," I repeated, earning a smile.

Rumil pointed to the two men closes to us, introducing them as Orophin and Haldir.

All three looked down at me expectantly and when I realized they were waiting for my own name, I hung my head and began studying the ground.

"Bedim," Haldir commanded when it became obvious I would not answer, and he turned his horse to lead the company.

Rumil leaned down to whisper in my ear, "goheno nin."

I had no idea what it meant, but he made me feel safe, so I smiled and relaxed as I was taken away from the horror to which I had awoken not so long ago.

* * *

><p>Before long we approached an otherworldly golden wood. Though my memory loss prevented complete certainty, I felt confident in thinking that I had never before seen such colours in nature. The leaves were a vivid green, almost shining in the sunlight. And the branches they sprung from were a bright golden brown. The forest felt alive, if such a thing were possible. Alive and welcoming.<p>

My awe must have been very apparent. Behind me Rumil said, "si barn le."

Given the soothing tone in his voice I assumed that 'barn' had a completely different meaning from what I would have guessed. The thought of a dilapidated barn in the beautiful woods around me made me bite the inside of my cheek to hold back a smirk. I did not want to offend my saviour, and the remark was clearly intended to be soothing, not amusing.

A small scream of surprise escaped me as we galloped across a crystalline river and the cold water sprayed my feet and lower legs. I felt more than heard Rumil's laughter - the sloshing of the water caused by a dozen or so horses galloping was surprisingly loud. Until that moment, though, I had not realized my feet were not covered. In fact, I had not realized I was wearing a dress. Somewhere in the back of my mind I thought that it must be the shock of all that had happened since I woke, and wondered if that same shock was contributing to my memory loss.

Onward we galloped and the horses did not slow until we were within view of what had to be the single most awe-inspiring thing I had ever seen: a city built into mountainous trees. Songs echoed in the trees around us as we entered the city. "Caras Galadhon," Haldir breathed.

I turned back to Rumil and he gestured at the city around us with a smile, repeating Haldir's words. "Caras Galadhon," I tried repeating. Rumil's grin grew in response. At least I was making some headway. When I woke up I knew no words in their language, now I knew three names, a city, and the name for the monsters who had captured me. Oh, and when we stopped to eat I learned the word for 'eat'. At least I think it was 'eat'. It might have been 'food'. Still, not bad for a day's work.

After we made our way into the heart of the city and dismounted, I met two people I assumed were the rulers or leaders or whatever word they used. Their names were Celeborn and Galadriel. They were both quite welcoming, but Galadriel threw me for a loop when I heard her voice in my head. I had no idea what she was saying, but I understood her perfectly. Somehow her telling me telepathically not to be afraid seemed to be counterproductive, but I suppose that there was no other way I would have understood. Hindsight is twenty-twenty.

As it was, I shrunk back from her and directly into Haldir. I sought out Rumil's eyes and he offered a comforting smile in return. Behind me, Haldir stood still and firm as a statue, keeping me from running away.

Haldir, Orophin, and Rumil spoke to both Galadriel and Celeborn. I assumed they spoke of how they found me, but for all I knew they were talking about fairies and unicorns and other things I had thought were not real up to this point. While they spoke, I took in the beauty of the city and tried my best to understand what had happened so far.

While I had not had any real mental breakdown, I was confused and scared. I had no idea who I was or where I was from. Above all else, I knew this world should not be real. Yet here I was, confronted with a cold, hard reality that should not exist.

In my head I could picture skyscrapers and movie theatres and concerts, but I could not name a single detail. My favourite book? No idea. My favourite food? Not a clue.

I was alone and without any sort of sense of identity. Granted, I was not actually alone, but the people helping me - I began to realize they were elves - did not speak my language and I did not speak theirs.

Before long I was on my way again, with telepathic reassurances that all would be well. Or at least it did not feel long. Honestly, I could have been there for hours. It was all becoming a blur, I was so exhausted and kind of terrified.

As I was escorted away, I turned to watch Celeborn and Galadriel disappear behind a curtain of leaves. It did not take long to figure out I was being lead to their doctors to take care of my wounds - somehow in all the shock I had forgotten about the pain in my burnt hand.

When that was done, Haldir alone was waiting outside to escort me to a nice, comfy bed. Almost before my head hit the exceedingly soft pillow I was asleep.


End file.
